Manage your subscription

Beet vandals

Irish police are searching for “a significant number of people” who dug up
and destroyed the country’s first genetically engineered crop. The vandalised
field in County Carlow contained sugar beet engineered by the agrochemicals
multinational Monsanto to carry a gene for resistance to its herbicide Roundup.
A group calling itself the Gaelic Earth Liberation Front has claimed
responsibility. A Monsanto spokesman says the company will carry on with the
project despite the damage.